Hopeless Cause
by Gurbit
Summary: Mei looks at Gaara and can't help but remember the last time a young jinchuriki became Kage. (Oneshot)


She should have hated him.

She did, admittedly, feel a shiver of fear as she laid eyes on the young Kazekage. Had seen Chojuro drop his gaze, quivering as the knuckles that gripped Hiramekarei turned white. Even Ao had stilled, his lips tight and the Byakugan veins pulsing at his temples.

Everything about the child Kage had made her blood run cold. The calm, even tone brought back flashes from the bloody mist, as _he_ had stood before the graduating class high in the mountains above Kirigakure and spoke pleasantly of loyalty, sacrifice and honour as their shaking hands were dyed red and the air rung with pathetic cries and the crunch of fragile bone. This boy's smooth, youthful face was unscarred, but his pale eyes gleamed with wisdom and power far beyond their sixteen years. And while those eyes were closer in colour to the deep teal of his robes, from the corner of her eye she couldn't help but imagine a violet gleam.

She'd heard he'd slaughtered friend and enemy alike, and wondered how much of it was the bijuu raging inside, and how much was his own loathing for humanity. Afterall, how often had loneliness of those such as he turned to misanthropy, and bitterness into bloodlust?

For the last time a child jinchuriki had ascended as Kage, the oceans had run with blood. Brother had turned on brother, strength and weakness alike were punished, and Kirigakure's shinobi had been damaged beyond repair. Many sought to repay iron with iron, with Zabuza's impatience and ambition foiling his attempt to usurp his reign. Hundreds followed suit, fleeing through Kiri's gates with hate on their lips and ice in their hearts. Some, like the Houzuki boys or the thousands of kekkei genkai possessors, had simply vanished. Others, like Kisame, had found their sole salvation in bloodshed, their only certainty in a life of backstabbing and bloodthirsty, cutthroat ambition.

When she'd confronted him, his smile had been teasing, gentle even, and his violet eyes had regarded her like a child, even as her lava crumbled the Sanbi's shell and acid tore at his lungs.

"You of all people should understand Mei," he'd whispered through bloody lips. "It's not enough for us to be strong, for us to be feared… jinchuriki or kekkei genkai, they'll crush us. We have to break them, tear them apart, so that we're their only hope. Only then, alone and pathetic as we were, will they bow to our will. It's the only way for one such as us to rule, as you'll see…"

His advice earned him nothing but a final threat and an icy smile as she'd increased the jutsu's acidity and watched his smooth, calm face dissolve into crumbling bone. But his final message had stuck with her, and her first moments as Godaime had been plagued with paranoia.

But when Ao had muttered warnings under his breath she'd shook her head to silence him, even as her stomach churned and her mind was filled with pictures of a demonic young man in Kage attire sitting calmly as his shinobi hacked each other to death in him name.

Instead she looked him over; this dangerous monster of a man who'd cursed his comrades and longed for their screams, to drench his hands in their blood. This broken boy who'd fought through his own hatred and held his position not through fearful obedience but through trust dutifully earned and eagerly given. And somewhere reflected in those pale eyes she saw another copper haired child, a monster loathed by the people. Another lonely weapon, regarded with hopeless dread as a volatile catastrophe waiting to implode on the very people they fought for.

She had to hope. That was what had destroyed them ultimately-Raiga, Utakata, Kisame… even Yagura himself. They were so lost in Kiri's web of bloodshed, hatred and lies that the thought of change was laughable, a child's pipe dream.

Mei would not be destroyed. And as long as the toxic fumes filled her lungs, neither would Kiragakure. Her cursed childhood prison. Her beloved home.

So she gave Subaku no Gaara a warm smile, and reached across to shake the pale hand, focusing on the surprised eyes rather than the buzzing sand.

He was young and dangerous. Broken and reformed. A twisted outcast with an impossible dream of a better world.

Yagura had been wrong-she didn't have to follow his twisted path. And looking across at the relieved, hesitant smile gracing the face of the young shinobi, it seemed she wasn't alone in her pipe dream.

It seemed even monsters such as the two of them weren't so hopeless after all.


End file.
